Troyes and cycling

In all, Troyes appeared eight times on the Tour de France map, most of the times close to the finish in Paris. The 1960 stage to Troyes was historical as the peloton stopped to pay homage to a special spectator, general De Gaulle. The French president at the time had decided to stay on the roadside to watch the Tour from his home village of Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises. The bunch was brought to a halt by race director Jacques Goddet, letting Pierre Beuffeuil, who had been dropped on a puncture, to return and go on to win the stage on his own 70 km further down the road in Troyes. From then, stage finishes in town mostly crowned sprinters. Troyes was also the hometown of one of the most successful families in Tour history, the Simon brothers. The most famous of the four was Pascal, who held the yellow jersey in 1983 before being forced out of the Tour with a broken collarbone. Pascal, Regis and Jerome all won a Tour de France stage. Their fourth sibling, François, had to be content with winning a stage on the Giro.